Study: Lack of Sleep Heightens Insulin Resistance

Sleep depravity not only affects your mood and energy levels but can also intensify insulin resistance.

Researchers have found new health risks associated with little sleep that connects to obesity and type II diabetes.

A new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine showed that lack of sleep can hinder fat cells from responding to insulin, the hormone responsible for controlling the metabolism in relation to diabetes.

Scientists studied seven young men and women over the span of eight days allowing them to sleep normally for only four nights. For the remaining nights, subjects were restricted to receiving 4.5 hours of sleep and were placed on a limited diet to allow scientists to monitor their caloric intake.

Blood tests showed that the participants’ insulin sensitivity dropped by an average of 16 percent after being sleep deprived for four days. Test results also showed that their fat cell sensitivity to insulin lowered by 30 percent, which is similar to levels experienced by someone who is obese or diabetic.

“This is the equivalent of metabolically aging someone 10 to 20 years just from four nights of partial sleep restriction, said Matthew Brady, the study’s lead author and a professor of medicine at the University of Chicago. “Fat cells need sleep, and when they don’t get enough sleep, they become metabolically groggy.”

Scientists examined the fat cells even further through a biopsy and found that it took almost three times as much insulin for the cell to release an enzyme known as Akt. Akt is essential in controlling blood sugar levels.